Vladimir Propp

Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp was an outstanding Russian folklorist. Son: Mikhail Propp.

He was born on April 17 (April 29, new style), 1895, in St. Petersburg, into a family of Volga Germans. From 1914 to 1918, he studied Russian and German philology at the Faculty of Philology of Petrograd University. Afterwards, he worked as a schoolteacher. Since 1932, he taught and conducted research at Leningrad University (LGU), successively in the departments of Romance-Germanic philology, folklore, and, from 1948 to 1969, Russian literature. In 1963–1964, he served as acting head of the Department of Russian Literature. In 1937, he became an associate professor, and from 1938 he was a professor. Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp died in Leningrad on August 22, 1970.